She looked at me and then her eyes turned back to the road as she sat coldly ignoring me for the rest of the drive into town. She was trying her best to put distance between us and I understood. I wasn’t going to let it happen, but I
understood why she was doing it. In the six weeks that I had been on the ranch, I had already seen four men leave and three more take their places. It wasn’t a place where men came and lived for a long time and I couldn’t promise her I was going to stay much longer either. Who was I to try and build a friendship with this woman? I could literally be gone at any moment. The agent who dropped me off just had to show up at the front door of Mr. Miller’s home and I would leave with him without a question being asked.
I couldn’t offer Sarah anything and I was selfish for wanting anything from her. But I still wanted it. I still wanted her. Even if I was only there one more day, I wanted to feel the gentle touch of Sarah’s lips against mine. I longed for a moment when we could sneak away and she would let me explore her naked body with my lips and hands. I’d take anything she was willing to give, anything except the silence she was giving me as we drove into town.
“How am I doing with my jobs?” I asked in an effort to get her to talk to me.
“Good. I mean, it was pretty hilarious watching you try to catch that pig the other day though.”
That damn pig. I knew she had seen me struggling with that thing and everyone else on the ranch as well. It was emasculating to have a little pig cause so much chaos. I had never in my life spent so much time trying to grab an animal and my frustration at the event had grown so high that I would have started throwing a tantrum if others hadn’t of been watching. It was like the pig actually had a vendetta against me.
“I don’t understand how your father did it. He basically used some sort of witch-power and the damn thing totally stopped running and let your dad pick him up.”
Sarah laughed at my description of her father, but it was totally true. I had chased after the damn pig for half an hour and when Sid walked up, the pig just succumbed to him and let him pick the damn thing up. It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been me that had been tortured by the damn pig.
With Sarah, I had done what I had intended to do and broke her armor for the slightest of moments. My heart filled with potential and I quickly tried to figure out how I could prolong this moment with her and keep her armor down long enough to get to know her. She was a tough woman and I accepted that. Hell, I loved that she was so damn tough, but it meant I was going to have to work a little harder than I was used to around a woman. I was all right with that though; I was all right with whatever I had to do to keep Sarah’s attention.
“My father is a big of a pig whisperer,” Sarah continued to laugh.
“I have to admit, working on the ranch is so much harder than I imagined it would be and I don’t think I’m very good at it either. Your father has been very generous to let me work with him.”
“My father wouldn’t keep you around if you weren’t a hard worker. I think you’re doing all right.”
I pulled up my pants leg and exposed a huge bite mark on my leg. I had actually been a little worried about it, but Mrs. Miller convinced me it happened all the time and as long as I kept it clean, I would be fine. Meredith Miller was a pretty amazing woman; she was up for breakfast and still up when we all went to bed. I could see where Sarah got her strength both physically and mentally.
“What the hell happened to you?” Sarah yelled at me as she stopped the car in the parking lot of the store.
“You’ll laugh, it’s okay. I’m keeping it clean and it should heal up really soon.”
“Are there any other injuries I should know about while we are in town? I can load up on some additional first air supplies,” she said as she smiled at me. “Was that from the pig?”
“Yes,” I said and quick looked away. Sarah broke out into laughter and I couldn’t help turning to look at her. “It really hurt and he was fast,” I defended myself.
Her laughter was brilliant and I searched my mind for anything else I could say to keep her laughing. It dawned on me that this was what it was like to truly like a woman. Which seemed odd considering I had had plenty of girlfriends over the years, but many of them seemed to be girls that were good enough for the moment and not girls I truly wanted to be with.
As I sat in the truck with Sarah, I realized what a huge difference it was with her compared to other women. I genuinely had put my life at risk to simply have some alone time with her. I was searching my brain for jokes that might get her to smile and laugh and that was all I wanted from her. Sure, I would have loved for her to tell me she wanted to take me to bed, but I was also all right with exactly what we had in that moment. Her pure laughter was making me happy too, and the realization was life-changing for me.
Even if I left the ranch the next day and nothing more ever came of my relationship with Sarah, I had a life changing view of relationships that had taken me thirty years to find. The unselfishness of that moment wasn’t something I had really experienced with a woman before and it felt like a drug to me. I wanted more of Sarah, I wanted her smiles, her attention, and anything else she would give me because it gave me a happiness high like no other that I had experienced.
“Well, congratulations; I think you are the first person to ever work on the farm and get beaten up by a pig.”
Her smile was brilliant as she looked at me and I could tell I had succeeded in keeping her wall down for a moment. It was a trick I had learned as a CEO; when you make yourself vulnerable, people tend to make themselves vulnerable as well. But I had never been as successful outside of the office as I felt at that moment with Sarah. Her smile, her laughter, it was because of me and I couldn’t wait to make her laugh again and again.
“You’ve never been bit by a pig?” I asked as we laughed.
“Um, no. I’ve never been bit by any animal. I was once thrown off a wild horse when I was younger, though. I fractured my spine and had to spend months in bed.”
“Wow, that sounds painful. Why were you on a wild horse?” I asked as our laughter started to die down.
She paused for a moment before answering me and I could see she was thinking about whether or not she wanted to continue our conversation. It was a nice conversation, but I was vulnerable and so was she. If her parents had told her to stay away from me, the moment was right then for her to end the talking. I told myself if she really didn’t like me she would stop the conversation and we would simply go buy the saddle and head back home. But if she liked me, even just a little bit, Sarah would tell me why she had been on that wild horse.
“We should probably get going. I’d like to try and put the saddle on Buckjoy before nightfall.”
Disappointment rushed through me and I could have given up at that very moment, but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. I wanted to see her laugh again. I needed Sarah to keep her defenses down and for us to at least be friends. I didn’t want to go weeks without her talking to me again.
“You’ve got a thing for wild men,” I teased as we climbed out of the truck and started toward the store.
It was a joke that I thought would catch her attention. Enough flirting for her to really know I was interested, but nothing too crude or vulgar. I was proud of my joke, up until I saw the wild look in her eyes as we walked toward the building.